Abstract
BackgroundAnxiety disorder is the most prevalent mental disorder among children and adolescents, causing significant psychosocial problems and physical health conditions. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment for anxiety disorder in children and adolescents. And parent-only CBT is an alternative treatment for childhood anxiety disorder, which includes psychologists and parents rather than children in the treatment. As a new type of CBT, parent-only CBT has some advantages. However, it remains unclear whether parent-only CBT interventions are effective for treating children and adolescents with anxiety disorder.MethodsIn this study, we evaluated the efficacy (the mean change scores of the anxiety rating scale from baseline to post-treatment, standardized mean difference SMD) and acceptability (the proportion of patients in the treatment group who withdrew from treatment early for any reason, risk ratios RRs) of parent-only cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for children and adolescents with anxiety disorder. We searched electronic databases, including PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, Web of Science, ProQuest, and PsycINFO from inception to June 2019. We included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing parent-only CBT either with waitlist (WL), or CBT with parents in children and adolescents with anxiety disorder.ResultsFinally, six RCTs with 407 participants were included in the meta-analyses. In terms of efficacy, pooled analyses indicated that parent-only CBT was significantly more effective than WL for reducing anxiety symptoms with SMD of − 0.72 (95% CI − 1.41 to − 0.03, p = 0.04), and more remission rate with RR of 4.33 (37.96% vs. 6.85, 95% CI 1.82 to 10.27, p = 0.0009) at post-treatment. And our analyses showed no evidence that parent-only CBT had significantly greater efficacy than CBT with parents with SMD of 0.21 (95% CI − 0.09 to 0.50, p = 0.17). Acceptability in the parent-only CBT group was not significantly different to the WL group with RR of 0.92 (95% CI 0.52 to 1.62, p = 0.77), and was significantly worse than in the CBT with parents group with RR of 1.93 (95% CI 1.05 to 3.57, p = 0.03).ConclusionsCurrent evidence indicates that parent-only CBT can be an alternative and acceptable intervention for treating children and adolescents with anxiety disorder.
Highlights
Anxiety disorder is the most prevalent mental disorder among children and adolescents, causing significant psychosocial problems and physical health conditions
Current evidence indicates that parent-only Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be an alternative and acceptable intervention for treating children and adolescents with anxiety disorder
The results suggested that, compared with the WL control condition, parent-only CBT is an effective treatment for reducing anxiety symptoms and relieving anxiety in children, leading to remission at the end of treatment
Summary
Anxiety disorder is the most prevalent mental disorder among children and adolescents, causing significant psychosocial problems and physical health conditions. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment for anxiety disorder in children and adolescents. Parent-only CBT is an alternative treatment for childhood anxiety disorder, which includes psychologists and parents rather than children in the treatment. As a new type of CBT, parent-only CBT has some advantages It remains unclear whether parent-only CBT interventions are effective for treating children and adolescents with anxiety disorder. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment for childhood anxiety disorder. The importance of the family environment and parenting style factors have been identified in previous studies focused on the etiology of childhood anxiety disorders [15]
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